Lawmakers Surprised By Outcry Against Bipartisan Bill To ‘Expand’ Vaccine Surveillance, by Joy Pullmann

The subheading of H.R. 550 summarizes the legislation as ‘Expanding CDC And Public Health Department Capabilities.’

A bill that passed the House last week to “expand” and connect state vaccine registries faced swift blowback from constituents of the 80 Republicans and 214 Democrats who voted for the bill. H.R. 550 is now in the Senate after going straight to a vote with no hearing in the House under a common suspension of rules for bills expected to face little opposition.

If passed, the bill would have federal health agencies including the Department of Health and Human Services and Centers for Disease Control “award grants” to state and local health departments to “improv[e] the secure bidirectional exchange of immunization record data among Federal, State, local, Tribal, and territorial governmental entities and non-governmental entities.”  ….